Finally one study about games that doesn't just pull opinions out of their arse and has at least an interesting backdrop to it.

I found the fact that women were relatively unaffected particularly interesting. I've always believed that men are moreso influenced by abstract thoughts and things than women and this kind of study seems to corroborate that. To be fair, it would be interesting to see how men would respond to playing 'nice' and non-violent games and then how they'd treat their opponents based on that though...and it'd be interesting if women would, yet again, not be as influenced by 'nice' games just as they were unaffected by 'violent' ones.

As I said...it'd go along with my theory that men are moreso influenced by the abstract parts of our lives than women. Granted it's only a theory, but still...I've always seen it somehow like this. That the reasons for the big gap between women and men gamer numbers isn't just because games need to be made moreso to suit women, but also because it's fundamentally an abstract genre.

Celtic_Kerr:Hi! 20 year old man here! After playing a very violent videogame, I do NOT get more aggressive.

Stop assuming these things.

Thank you

Boom. /thread, s0n.

I play violent games all the time, for just about a few hours a day depending on my schedule. For me, violent video games vent frustration a lot more than they build it. I have never willingly gotten into a fistfight, and the times when I almost did were when I was protecting my friends from assholes, namely the generic wannabe-gangstas so common to my area. I will fight to protect, but I've finished possibly violent fights with words more often than not. Fuck off, "science".

The study was only a "randomly sorted 126 college students." They only played 20 mins and had to think about violent games for 24 hours? I don't think that's a very good study of how video games affect people's aggression.

Younger men are always going to be more aggressive. They are full of testosterone and would shock the crap out of their friend for fun. I hope they're not trying to say this is what happens with 100% of guys that play games. In fact, I wouldn't believe them if they said this is what happens to 50% of guys.

More tests, more data and stricter control of variables before I would consider this a viable study.

The_ModeRazor:I disagree, there is nothing more calming than God of War. You'll never ever want to fucking hurt anyone again after finishing all the games.

Very true. By the end of the game, you'll have spilled enough blood to fill Atilla the Hun's lifestyle, let alone that of a layman. Like I said in a previous comment, they vent frustration. If you're thinking about wrecking people in your upcoming football game, you get aggressive, too. Maybe we should do a study on that so that we can net-teabag these studies.

The_ModeRazor:I disagree, there is nothing more calming than God of War. You'll never ever want to fucking hurt anyone again after finishing all the games.

Very true. By the end of the game, you'll have spilled enough blood to fill Atilla the Hun's lifestyle, let alone that of a layman. Like I said in a previous comment, they vent frustration. If you're thinking about wrecking people in your upcoming football game, you get aggressive, too. Maybe we should do a study on that so that we can net-teabag these studies.

This is a totally conclusive test and not at all done in an artificial environment where people's actions can be lead by researchers and the surroundings... totally.

BioTox:The study was only a "randomly sorted 126 college students." They only played 20 mins and had to think about violent games for 24 hours? I don't think that's a very good study of how video games affect people's aggression.

I think anyone would be pissed off if they were forced to not play games and sit around thinking about them all day... but all this really proves is that people waiting for what they want makes them kind of bitchy.

Logan Westbrook:A study conducted by Dr. Bryan Gibson of Central Michigan University and Dr. Brad Bushman of Ohio State University showed that men who played violent games and then thought about them afterwards showed heightened levels of aggression as long as 24 hours later.

OTOH, there was a paper from the University of Rochester, New York, published last week on how action videogames improve decision-making skills.

For people (the people who performed the testing) that are so presumably smart, didn't they take into account that the reason these men appeared more violent is because they implanted those feelings into their subjects brains. Did they let their test subjects on to the fact that the two tests were going to be linked and so soon from one another? Were they like, "now go think about this ultra violent game for 24 hours and then come back tomorrowfor further testing?"

You can't really have an accurate experiement when you engineer the results, even unknowingly.

A: not a large enough group here, to get a genuinely accurate reading. aka 21 people per game. divided again that would be roughtly 10 men per game and since there's six games 3 of which i will guess would have been the violent ones that would be 30 men.... YOUR BASING THE RESULTS OF YOUR STUDY ON 30 MEN HERE, that is not conclusive evidence, sure it can suggest that it makes people more violent but not even come close to sounding like proof.

B: They could not control what was happening out width of said game time, making it somewhat flawed. In a study with said amount of people it would be very easy to get wrong readings due to this.

C: THERE WAS NO REAL CONTROL GROUP.... (aka people who were non subjected to any intervention (made to play the games)) im sorry but when there's no control group in a study, i have to question its validity.

all in all, this is more than likely a load of trash, and i will take it with a pince of salt.

there is alot more flaws i could point out, but come on if a first year psychology student can see this (its one of my courses not my main).....now going into second year.

Stupid unscientific study is stupid and unscientific. I mean is there anything more that really needs to be said? I could grab a tiny insignificant portion of society and make a very uncontrolled test and claim anything I want as well, its not really that hard.

No no no, the scientists have it all wrong: Its not the violence in video games that makes people violent, its the stupid surveys that claim that violence in video games does bad things to people that makes gamers violent!

Here's an idea I think these researchers can get behind, let's make a test wherein we kick one group in the balls, we punch another group in the face, and we have a control group wherein both actions occur, than judge aggression afterward.

And then again, as I ignited, froze, and electrocuted splicers in Bioshock, I was thinking about the growing power of Laissez Faire America and the rising power of consumerism and maybe the gradual fall of America into decline.

Vindication! So logically when non-aggressive males play video games they become more aggressive. That is great news for passive geeky guys like me. Got a job interview? Play Mortal Combat for a week in preparation. There are times in a man's life where being aggressive is a good thing. Why do they have to make this a bad thing?